Children qualify for the Anchorage Elementary Gifted Enrichment Program by scoring at or above the 96th percentile on at least three nationally-normed tests. Two of these instruments must be ability tests and one must be an achievement test. Currently, the following ability tests are used: The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAt); the Test of Cognitive Skills (TCS); the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT); the Woodcock-Johnson Cognitive Abilities Test (WJ-Cog) and the Raven Progressive Matrices. Students may also qualify in ability by scoring at or above 126 on the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III). For achievement, we rely on the Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Battery and the California Achievement Test (CAT).
In addition to test scores, candidates must receive a qualifying score on a classroom teacher checklist of learning and motivational characteristics.
IGNITE is a pull-out program, and as such it cannot adequately meet all the needs of our gifted students. We are, however, able to provide academic and intellectual challenge, stimulation and exposure to ideas not usaually available in the regular classroom.
The Anchorage School District also has a self-contained program for highly gifted ("low incidence") elementary students--those scoring at or above the 98th percentile on two or more tests and who score at least 145 on an IQ assessment. This program is housed at Rogers Park Elementary in the midtown area and serves qualifying youngsters from the entire Anchorage School District.
Junior high students study in self-contained gifted classes in their neighborhood schools. Most schools offer gifted language arts, math and science classes, and some offer "enriched" versions of these same courses. High school students attend honors and AP courses and pursue independent study with mentors.
There are over 2000 identified gifted students in the Anchorage School District (total ASD enrollment is over 49,000).